My first apple pie

My mom's birthday was on Thanksgiving, so I wanted to make her favorite as the dessert. So I ventured into my very first apple pie.

I found this recipe on Gillian's blog, and it was really great. I was a little bit nervous because it looked so ugly, but it came out great. It smelled so good as we drove to Grandma's house, I was very excited to eat it.

I used a premade crust, using the generic brand. It tasted fine, but it also played a role in the ugliness factor because there were lots of tears as I unrolled the crust.

Because we were traveling, I didn't get a chance to take a picture, so you'll just have to use your imagination, but it was a great and easy recipe!

For Messy Cooks (like me)

I have been on the lookout for a nice apron, because I am... well, a messy cook. My friend Kim *check her out here* posted about a contest to win a free apron. You can check out the contest, as well as the great aprons at Epicurean Style, and the contest is at epicureanstyle.typepad.com (scroll down to Up For Grabs)! I love the Molly style!

Italian Confetti Pasta Salad

I found this on allrecipes... you can see the recipe here.

We were going over to friends' for dinner, and were told they would be grilling. Pasta salad seemed a fitting side dish, so we went with it.

This was SO good; everyone loved it! YUM; BAJ even raved that this is a keeper for sure.
I made a few simple modifications... first, I used olive oil mayonnaise, because that's what I had on hand and I figured it would go well. A great choice. I used green bell pepper, instead of yellow, because they were much cheaper. I'm glad I didn't get red, because this added another dimension of color. I also added some red onion into the mix, which added a GREAT tang to the salad. Finally, I didn't have any black olives, so I didn't use em.

This was great, and is a keeper in our house for sure!

Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina

I saw this on Lauren's blog and made it. You can see the recipe here. I didn't read the recipe very carefully and mistook "Cubed chicken" for cooked chicken. So I used those Purdue short cuts thingies, and skipped the cooking it step. It worked pretty well, and surely cut down my prep time. I threw in some garlic for good measure.

This was pretty tasty, but a little bit on the bland side. The Boy ate the pasta and the tomatoes, but wouldn't touch the chicken...big surprise.

I don't know if I'll keep this one or not...

As a side, I had purchased some snow peas to throw into the salad I made. But I decided that wasn't a flavor I wanted in my salad, so I followed the recipe in the container to make basically a stir fry, which included red peppers, mushrooms, and snow peas. It was pretty good, although not a very good choice of side with an Italian pasta entree. Ha!

Turkey Roulade with Cider Apple Gravy.

I found this here. I figured this would be a great Sunday dinner, and in theory it was. It was easy, but very very time consuming. Way too much work, even for Sunday dinner. It was all good, but not so good to make the work levels worth it. The potatoes were very good, so that will be a keeper. BAJ didn't mind the cranberry relish, but I thought it was WAY too tangerine-y and couldn't taste the pear at all.

As you can see from the pics, the stuffing didn't hold together so well despite being tied up.

Chicken Tetrazinni

I got this from my Betty Crocker's Bridal Edition cookbook. I had leftover cooked chicken from the enchiladas, and was looking for a good way to use them. This was pretty tasty, and very easy to make. SCORE!

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Honey Lime Enchiladas with Tomato Chipotle Rice

I found these mentioned here on Good Eats n Sweet Treats. It looked so good that I had to try, and the combination with the rice sounded perfect. What a great choice! We both loved it, even though it was much too spicy, even with only one pepper. BAJ combined the rice with the enchilada and seemed to like it a lot that way.

I modified the recipe to make enough for two. I started with a store bought rotisserie chicken, and shredded one breast of it. I mixed in some of the marinade, but it started getting sort of gloppy--I kept adding more in the hopes of having leftover marinade as the recipe suggests. This made enough for three full sized tortilla shells, which was the perfect amount for both of us. I couldn't find green enchilada sauce, so used regular. The can was 10 oz, and when I added cream it almost filled the can with what was left after coating the bottom with it... so probably about 1/2 a cup.

As far as the rice, I also made a smaller amount of that too. I used half a small onion, and made enough for 2 servings of brown rice. I just realized that I didn't modify the amount of tomatoes, but that was just fine.

I wasn't sure what to do with the chipotle pepper, so I cut it into smaller pieces in the pan. I did, however, make sure that we didn't get any on our plates, fearing it would be way too spicy for us.

This was fantastic, and I'm so glad I found it!

Pictures coming soon!

Slow Cooker Applesauce

From The Crock Pot Lady blog.

This makes enough for 4 people. If you would like to freeze or can, use more apples.

--4 large apples, skinned ,cored, and cut in quarters
--juice from 1 lemon
--1/2 tsp cinnamon
--1 tsp vanilla
--1 T brown sugar
--1/4 cup H20

The Directions.

I used a 4 quart crockpot for the applesauce.

Skin, core, and cut your apples into quarters. Plop the pieces into your crockpot. Add the juice from the lemon, and the water. Pour in the vanilla, and add the cinnamon and brown sugar.

Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours. When the apples are super tender, mash with a potato masher or large fork. My apples were very tender after 6 hours, and I used a fork.

This was good. The problem, however, was that BAJ had made Baked Applesauce a few days earlier, and it was so good, he claimed that he had to hide his bowl, or he would have licked it clean. NICE.

Anyway, this just didn't quite measure up for us as a result. It was definitely EASIER than his, but easy isn't always best.

Apple Spice Cookie Bars

I saw this in my google reader and had to make it, especially after our recent trip to the apple orchard yielded 26 pounds of apples. For two people and one young toddler. Yikes.

OUT-FREAKING-STANDING is all I can say about this. It smelled fantastic while it baked, and was so easy to put together. The hubs liked it, as did his doesn't like a freaking thing I make father. I brought half into work, and they were gone by lunchtime. When I offered one to hubs the other night, he said no because he had had "three or four" for breakfast.

YUM!

I even thought I had goofed, adding 1/8t of the ground cloves, but it wasn't at all bad.

Thanks to Kayla for posting about this, as well as to Good Things Catered's Katie for providing the original recipe!

Apple Spice Cookie Bars

From: Good Things Catered

Ingredients:

2 c. plus 2 Tbsp all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp allspice

small pinch ground cloves

1/2 c. butter, melted

1 c. packed brown sugar

1 c. white sugar

2 eggs

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

2 apples, cored and diced (a little less than 2 c.)

cinnamon sugar for sprinkling Omitted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 9x13 pan with foil and baking spray.

In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves. Whisk to combine well and set aside.-In bowl of stand mixer, combine sugars and butter and beat on medium high until light and fluffy, about 1 minute.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well to combine.

Add vanilla extract and beat to combine.

Turn mixer on slow and fold in flour mixture a little at a time until just combined.

Fold in apples.-Spread mixture evenly into prepared pan and sprinkle top generously with cinnamon sugar.

Place in oven and bake until cooked through, when top slightly bounces back to the touch, about 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool completely before removing from pan, cutting and serving. (bars will be very soft)

Sweet "Citrus" Chicken

I was going blindly through my google reader looking for something to put on this week's menu. This looked really good, and then I discovered it was from the blog of my buddy Lauren. Goodness, do we have the same tastes or what?

Anyway, here's what she had to say about this one.

I made this exactly as written, except that I used two chicken breasts. It, obviously, had a LOT of Stove Top leftover. In the future, I think I'll put it all in individual containers and freeze them for future dinners... we really liked this one! It was so easy, and it was very very tasty too.

Thanks, Lauren!!

Pictures Coming soon!

Ingredients:

• 1-2/3 cups hot water
• 1 pkg. (6 oz.) STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix for Chicken
• 6 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1-1/2 lb.), pounded to 1/2-inch thickness
• 2/3 cup orange juice
• 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 3 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted

PREHEAT oven to 400°F. Add hot water to stuffing mix; stir just until moistened. Set aside.

PLACE chicken in 13x9-inch baking dish. Mix juice, sugar and butter until well blended; pour over chicken. Top with prepared stuffing.

BAKE 30 min. or until chicken is cooked through (170ºF).

Grown Up Mac and Cheese

I saw that the Barefoot Bloggers made what most of them considered a great mac and cheese dinner. You can find it on the food tv site, or by clicking here.

This was pretty easy to put together, although it does have a lot of steps.

We didn't, however, like this so much. I thought it was "ok," but BAJ had one bite and gave up. When he saw the blue cheese, he grimaced... but actually he said he didn't taste it at all, and neither did I. The problem was the Gruyere, which was just overwhelming a flavor in this. I also really wish I had scrimped a little and gone with regular old Swiss cheese, which surely would have been much cheaper.

I did like that this didn't have hard pieces, as is so common with baked mac and cheese. I did encounter one or two hard pieces, but mostly they were perfectly done.

Ah well--my first Ina recipe is a bust.

Pictures coming soon--it sure was a pretty thing!

Sauteed Cajun Shrimp

This came up in my google reader from the fabulous Dinner Tonight blog.

Here's the original recipe.

This was really easy and very good. It was my first time eating or using andouille sausage, but BAJ requested I use the kielbasa next time. I misunderstood the directions a little, and didn't precook the sausage, which made for some tough slicing. It looked kinda like sausage clumps, but the flavor was still there. Woops.

I used Uncle Ben's brown rice, which worked really well.

In all, this recipe cost us about $10... SCORE! The shrimp was on sale, and the only other ingredient I had to buy was the sausage. Everything else was in the pantry, so it cost a little more than $10. Unless you're supposed to factor in the cost of the pantry stuff? How the heck do ya do that?

Stuffed Pizza Pie

I saw this on Lauren's blog the other day, and as I was browsing for something to make for dinner today, this is what struck my fancy.

I went to the store and looked at the pizza dough, but it looked icky. Making the dough in the bread machine is so EASY, it was worth having dinner a little on the late side.

I used one bag of spinach, but it seemed like a LOT, so I didn't end up using it all. Next time, I'll save it and make spinach and strawberry salad as a side. I did toss some garlic in with them as I sauteed 'em.

Also, I forgot about the tomatoes, which are probably very necessary. I think I would have liked this a LOT more with them in there. It was a little confusing because the recipe didn't mention them but DID mention roasted red peppers. Luckily, though, I didn't start chopping them so they didn't just go to waste.



And, like Lauren's son, mine went nuts for this. Since we ate so late, we chose to eat *gasp, shock, Bad Mommy Role Model Alert* on the couch in front of the tv and The Boy. Which makes for easy begging for The Boy. I couldn't believe that he ate up the broccoli and the spinach, but he seemed to love it, as well as the dough. KEEPER!!

Pictures coming soon.

Ingredients:

• 16 oz whole wheat or white pizza dough
• 1 Cup ricotta cheese
• ¼ Cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 2 Cups fresh spinach leaves, chopped
• 1 1/2 tsp minced garlic (dried or fresh)
• 2 Cups fresh broccoli florets, steamed until fork tender, about 3 minutes in boiling water
• Pinch of salt
• ½ Cup chopped tomatoes
• 1 ½ Cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• ½ teaspoon dried Italian Seasoning

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Divide dough into 2 equal pieces. Spread and press one piece of dough into the bottom and sides of a 9-9 ½ inch round baking dish. In a medium bowl, mix together the ricotta and parmesan cheese until well combined. Spread into pressed pizza dough.


2. Place olive oil into a medium skillet over medium heat. Saute spinach until wilted down, about 3 minutes. Place evenly over ricotta cheese layer, and sprinkle garlic on top. Place steamed broccoli florets over spinach and season with a pinch or two of kosher salt. Layer roasted red peppers, then mozzarella cheese over top. Press out remaining piece of dough and place over filling, tucking edges inside of pan. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with Italian Seasoning. Bake for 25-35 minutes or until crust is golden brown and cooked through.

3. Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan or cutting into wedges.

Chicken Milano

Another from allrecipes. See it here.

This is DAMN good. And easy too. I've made this before, and decided to go through some of the old recipes again. I used the jarred sun dried tomatoes, in oil, despite the author of the recipe's suggestion not too. Woops.

I also used whole wheat linguine. It was great here. It was the Stop and Shop kind with the greenish logo.

This is a keeper!!!

Strawberry Spinach Salad

I got this from allrecipes. Well, sorta. Find the original here.

I used a bottle of poppyseed dressing. I'm lazy, and it HAD to be cheaper than buying all those individual ingredients...right?

So in the end, I guess this isn't really a recipe. But I'm dumb, so I needed one. It was really good, though!

Picture coming soon.

"If yours tasted like this, I might eat it!"

OUCH. Yep, that's what I heard today. My mom gave us a pan of baked ziti. This is the same baked ziti she showed me to make, but yet mine doesn't taste nearly as good, God knows why. But for BAJ to say it? OUCH.

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I want to win it A LOT because not only am I in need of an apron (I'm such a messy cook), but also because it is too durn cute.

So DO NOT go here to enter the contest!

Chicken Parmesan Heroes

Another from Quick from Scratch One-Dish Meals by Food & Wine Magazine; it can also be found here.

This was pretty tasty, and very easy to make. It isn't really that impressive of a recipe, since it's no different than any other skillet chicken recipe (egg, dredge, breadcrumbs, fry), but I guess I've never made a chicken parm sub before.

I probably should have done this the pizza shop way, and served spaghetti on the side to use up some of the leftover sauce (the recipe is for four, and there's only two of us), but my chosen sides were good anyway!

Apple Galette with Cider Drizzle

I got this from Everyday with Rachael Ray, but it can also be found here. I made this to take to a friend's house, and completely left the cider drizzle at home. Ugh. Anyway, this was really good. I took the suggestion to serve it with vanilla ice cream, which was a perfect touch. Our friends raved about how good it looked and smelled and tasted.

I was reading the directions rather than looking at the picture, and didn't really load the thing up with apples. I'll definitely do that next time, if only so I don't have so much waste!

BAJ wasn't thrilled with this, but I told him I'll make it again--I have to use up the second puff pastry AND we have to try it with the drizzle. Plus, we're planning to go apple picking soon, so I'll need some ways to use them up.

I had this the next day for breakfast, too, and it was very good then too!